Herbert Harbour

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It seems that Herbert Harbour's only link to Tasburgh was that he was a cousin of William Harbour whose parents had moved into the village in the early 1900s. Herbert had been born in about 1891 in East Dereham but by the age of 20 he was living with his sister and her husband, Sarah and Martin Larkin, in Liverpool where he worked as a wood sawyer in a cooperage or barrel makers. By the start of the war however he had a wife, Florence, and was living in the Liverpool district of Woolton. He had enlisted as a territorial for home service in 1914 but this was changed to general service by 1916 and as a member of the 2nd Battalion, the King's (Liverpool) Regiment he landed in France in early 1917.

They were stationed in Belgium and the Battalion was heavily involved in the 3rd Battle of Ypres, often referred to as the Battle of Passchendaele, notorious for the heavy rains that fell that autumn which turned churned up ground into a deep sea of mud in which many casualties just disappeared. Taking part in the attempt to capture Pilkem Ridge, the first attack in the Battle, their Division lost 168 officers and 3,384 men. After a month out of the line to reover, they returned to almost the same trenches before suffering more losses in the battle for Menin Road Ridge. His last engagement was in support of a Canadian attack on Shaap-Balie when the Division lost a further 3,000 men, one of which was Herbert who later died of his wounds.

He is one of 74 members of his Battalion buried in the Dozinghem Military Cemetery to the north of Poperinge.